Gymkhana

“ In his letters from Burma he talks of the Gymkhana at Rangoon as a sort of establissement [sic] where people have pleasant little dinners. In the 'Oriental Arcadia,' which Mr. F—— tells us is flavoured with naughtiness, people may do strange things, but they do not dine at Gymkhanas."—Ibid. July 2.
1881.—"R. E. Gymkhana at Malta, for Polo and other Ponies, 20th June, 1881."—Heading in Royal Engineer Journal, Aug. 1, p. 159.
1883.—"I am not speaking of Bombay people with their clubs and gymkhanas and other devices for oiling the wheels of existence...."—Tribes on My Frontier, 9. ”

“ The English national love of sport has lately introduced into Tehran the popular gymkhana, an institution which hails from India, where it is English enterprise under an Indian name. The British Legation has started this amusement, and it seems to provide energy for many who had longed for some fresh outdoor exercise, but could not organize it. ”

“ Not many Shaman prisoners, but a lot of Brown Sakae. Stout savages like Pathans. Kyrlos says he’s going to civilize them when he’s done with the Shamans. Your pal Henga is up there—with the vanguard generally. He’s a tiger and no mistake. Country up there is too bad for horses, so I deserted Stephnos and joined with Henga. He and I had a tophole picnic last week.”
“But what have you come back for? It’s not like you to miss a healthy scrap.” ”

“ As soon as we were returned to Giphantia, we consulted upon what we could do in favour of mankind so terribly fallen. Most of the spirits took the office of governing the elements, and, as far as lay in their power, of directing their motions, according to the wants of men. Those that remained at Giphantia, were entrusted with the sowing of the three Kernels, and carefully to mind what they produced. ”

“ Six or seven men go out together at night, tying round their feet ghunghunias or two small hollow balls of brass with stones inside which tinkle as they move, such as are worn by postal runners. They move in Indian file, the first man carrying a lantern and the others walking behind him in its shadow. They walk with measured tread, and the ghunghunias give out a rhythmical harmonious sound. Hares and other small animals are attracted by the sound, and at the same time half-blinded by the light, so that they do not see the line of men. ”

“ There was a moment's hush, and then such mirth as Gihon through his centuries had never heard—a roar like to the roar of his own cataracts in flood. Children cast themselves on the ground, and rolled back and forth cheering and whooping; strong men, their faces hidden in their clothes, swayed in silence, till the agony became insupportable, and they threw up their heads and bayed at the sun ”

“ Forsaking your family name of Mukunda Lal Ghosh, henceforth you shall be called Yogananda of the Giri branch of the Swami Order."
As I knelt before Sri Yukteswar, and for the first time heard him pronounce my new name, my heart overflowed with gratitude. How lovingly and tirelessly had he labored, that the boy Mukunda be someday transformed into the monk Yogananda! I joyfully sang a few verses from the long Sanskrit chant of Lord Shankara:
"Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling; Sky nor earth nor metals am I. I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He! No birth, no death, no caste have I ”

“ As for Gurkhan, when he first heard of the murder of Shuwakem and the other officers, he was in a terrible rage. He declared that he would revenge his servant by laying waste Idikut's territories with fire and sword. But when he heard that Idikut had placed himself under the protection of Genghis Khan, and especially when he learned that he had married the emperor's daughter, he thought it more prudent to postpone his vengeance, not being quite willing to draw upon himself the hostility of so great a power. ”

“ The Yogi meditates upon various centres in his body and manipulates powers in his mind. The Jnâni says the mind does not exist, neither the body. This idea of the body and of the mind must go, must be driven off; therefore it is foolish to think of them. It would be like trying to cure one ailment by bringing in another. His meditation therefore is the most difficult one, the negative; he denies everything, and what is left is the Self. This is the most analytical way. The Jnâni wants to tear away the universe from the Self by the sheer force of analysis. ”

“ The Russian version as a whole is fuller and more perfect; yet neither from it, nor, seemingly, from any of its variants, can the Gypsy tale be derived. The opening of the latter comes much closer to that of Hahn’s story from Syra (ii. 267) , a variant of the Turkish-Gypsy story of ‘The Dead Man’s Gratitude’ (No. 1) , and surely itself of Gypsy origin. Here a king has an only son, and puts him to school; and the vizier, sent in quest of another lad, buys a beautiful Gypsy boy with a voice like a nightingale’s. He, too, is put to school, and proves the better scholar of the two. ”

“ At Giphantia, she disposes matter on extraordinary plans, and perpetually tends to produce something new: she every where incessantly repeats her labours, still endeavouring to carry her works to a degree of perfection which she never attains. These flowers which so agreeably strike the eye, she strives to render still more beautiful. These animals, which to you seem so dextrous, she endeavours to render still more so. In short, Man that to you appears so superior to the rest, she tries to render still more perfect ”

“ The Jnana - yogi must be as intense as the narrowest sectarian, yet as broad as the heavens. He must absolutely control his mind, be able to be a Buddhist or a Christian, to have the power to consciously divide himself into all these different ideas and yet hold fast to the eternal harmony. Constant drill alone can enable us to get this control. All variations are in the One, but we must learn not to identify ourselves with what we do, and to hear nothing, see nothing, talk of nothing but the thing in hand. We must put in our whole soul and be intense. ”

“ Dhanika45 effectively defends the classification of Jīmūtavāhana by insisting that he is not without desire, namely that of saving others at the cost of his own life; the desires he lays aside are wishes for personal advantage which Kālidāsa rightly censures in a king; his love for Malayavatī is wholly inconsistent with calmness, which, on the contrary, is in fact as in drama a characteristic of Brahmins, and it distinguishes him absolutely from the Buddha, who is exempt from passion. ”

“ For what that crisis stands, what is the significance of the battle of Kurukshetra and its effect on Arjuna’s inner being, we have first to determine if we would grasp the central drift of the ideas of the Gita.
Very obviously a great body of the profoundest teaching cannot be built round an ordinary occurrence which has no gulfs of deep suggestion and hazardous difficulty behind its superficial and outward aspects and can be governed well enough by the ordinary everyday standards of thought and action. ”

“ Who shall no more wend the way of all beings? Doing me a bad turn, Maghavan himself, or Vaiçravana, or Yama, or Vishnu, cannot attain happiness. I am the destroyer of the Destroyer himself; and I burn even very Fire. And I can bring death itself to mortality. I can by my impetus resist the force of the wind. And when enraged, I can by my energy consume the Sun and Fire." Thereat, Akampana, with joined hands, from fear replied to the ten-necked Rāvana, in faltering words, beseeching courage. Thereat that foremost of Rākshasas, the ten-necked one, granted him courage. ”

“ We smiled at each other in silence.
"For eleven years now I have been your KRIYA YOGA disciple," Mr. Dickinson continued. "Sometimes I wondered about the silver cup; I had almost persuaded myself that Vivekananda's words were only metaphorical. But on Christmas night, as you handed me the square box by the tree, I saw, for the third time in my life, the same dazzling flash of light. In another minute I was gazing on my guru's gift which Vivekananda had foreseen for me forty-three years earlier-a silver cup! ”

“ They had their own gymnasia,1487 and exercised themselves, either naked or lightly clad, in running, wrestling, or throwing the quoit and spear.1488 It is highly improbable that youths or men were allowed to look on, since in the gymnasia of Lacedæmon no idle bystanders were permitted; every person was obliged either to join the rest, or withdraw.1489 Like the Elean girls in the temples of [pg 322] Here, so at Sparta the eleven Bacchanalian virgins exhibited their skill in the race at a contest in honour of their god. ”

“ The Brahman of the Mayavadins is silent, immutable and inactive; so too is the Purusha of the Sankhya; therefore for both ascetic renunciation of life and works is a necessary means of liberation. But for the Yoga of the Gita, as for the Vedantic Yoga of works, action is not only a preparation but itself the means of liberation ”

“ Without a theory nothing can be done. I am working, Gammon, on the scientific principle of induction."
"Oh, are you!"
"Strictly; it has never failed me yet—I can't ay now; appointment at ten-thirty. But you all hear from me in a day or two."
"I say," inquired Gammon, "what's your dress now?"
"Address?—oh, address letters to this place. They'll be all right."
Another fortnight passed. It was now early in November; the weather gloomy, and by no means favourable to evening strolls. Gammon wanted much to see both Polly and Mrs. Clover ”

“ Now, once on a time the prince, with his ministers, and accompanied by his beloved, went on a pilgrimage to a garden called Nágavana. There a certain merchant’s wife fell in love with Gomukha, and being repulsed, tried to kill him by offering to him a poisoned drink. But Gomukha came to hear of it from the lips of her confidante, and did not take that drink, but broke out into the following denunciation of women: “Alas! the [312] Creator first created recklessness, and then women in imitation of it; by nature nothing is too bad for them to do. ”

“ He moved aside and saw a man in a heavy fur-lined overcoat, with a muffler loose about his neck; a thin, unhealthy-looking man, with sharp eyes, rather bloodshot, which turned timidly this way and that, and a high-bridged nose. As soon as he caught sight of the face Gammon drew himself up, every muscle strung. ”

“ An inner situation may even arise, as with the Buddha, in which all duties have to be abandoned, trampled on, flung aside in order to follow the call of the Divine within. I cannot think that the Gita would solve such an inner situation by sending Buddha back to his wife and father and the government of the Sakya State, or would direct a Ramakrishna to become a Pundit in a vernacular school and disinterestedly teach little boys their lessons, or bind down a Vivekananda to support his family and for that to follow dispassionately the law or medicine or journalism. ”

“ When Gammon, out of regard for the invalid's condition, insisted on having the window of the hansom dropped, Lord Polperro grumbled and lamented. The cool air did him good; he was beginning to breathe more easily than he had done for a long time.
"You are too imperious with me, Greenacre. I have noticed it in you before. You take too much upon yourself."
"I suppose it's no use telling you once more," said his companion, "that my name isn't Greenacre."
"Dear me! dear me! I beg your pardon a thousand times. I meant to say Gammon. I can't tell you, Gammon, how much I feel your kindness. ”

“ Whatever the system may be, it is not, as the commentators strive to make it, framed or intended to support any exclusive school of philosophical thought or to put forward predominantly the claims of any one form of Yoga. The language of the Gita, the structure of thought, the combination and balancing of ideas belong neither to the temper of a sectarian teacher nor to the spirit of a rigorous analytical dialectics cutting off one angle of the truth to exclude all the others ”

“ The Jnâna Yogi does not take any one of these physical helps, or mental helps, simply philosophic reasoning, knowledge and his own will, these are the instrumentality he believes in. Next comes Titikshâ, forbearance, bearing all miseries without murmuring, without complaining. When an injury comes, do not mind it. If a tiger comes, stand there. Who flies? There are men who practice titikshâ, and succeed in it. There are men who sleep on the banks of the Ganges in the mid-summer sun of India, and in winter float in the waters of the Ganges for a whole day; they do not care. ”

“ This species of gymnotus is about five or six feet in length. It is powerful enough to kill the largest animals when it discharges 18its nervous organs at one shock in a favourable direction. It was once found necessary to change the line of road from Uritucu across the Steppe, owing to the number of horses which, in fording a certain rivulet, annually fell a sacrifice to these gymnoti, which had accumulated there in great numbers. All other species of fish shun the vicinity of these formidable creatures. ”

“ Gammon did her bidding. He ascended lightly and tapped at the door Mrs. Clover indicated. A cough sounded from within; then a voice which the visitor recognized, saying, "Come in." On the bed, but fully dressed, lay a tall, meagre man, with a woollen comforter about his neck. The room was in good order, and warmed by a fire, which the sufferer's condition seemed to make very necessary. He fixed his eyes on Gammon, as if trying to smile, but defeated in the effort by pain and misery. ”

“ Evils of farming the revenue. There was another great and powerful khan, named Idikut, whose tribe had hitherto been under the dominion of Gurkhan, the Prince of Turkestan, where Kushluk had sought refuge, but who about this time revolted from Gurkhan and went over to Genghis Khan, under circumstances which illustrate, in some degree, the peculiar nature of the political ties by which these different tribes and nations were bound to each other. ”